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I haven't the slightest idea how to determine which ones are updated. Plus, I still need to be able to get in game to check my work, as I'm not a CK user. I make all of my mods with fo4edit only.

Well, I thought I had automatic updates turned off, but I guess I didn't. Can confirm that fo4edit isn't working. zEdit is down, too.

Not sure if this is precisely what you're after, but... More Scavenging Stations - For Scrapyards or Junkyards at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)

Better Companions - All In One allows you to control follower distance. I don't know how it works, but it does work, so it is a mainstay in my load order.

Sunken Garage - Glowing Sea Settlement at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com) It includes an optional file to recruit only ghouls.

There's also the matter of generating new LoD in some cases and filling terrain holes hidden by some of those objects.

Since settlers are immortal by default, there's likely a condition in their data that prevents dismemberment--after all, you don't want limbless settlers populating your settlements. In the case of a Nuka Raider play through, settler immortality is removed to allow settlement conquest, but I imagine the dismemberment block remains intact to accommodate settler subdual--again, you don't want limbless vassals populating your settlements. That's my theory, anyway.

That's not a bad idea, actually. At the very least, you'd be able to find out which objects are part of the precomines and which aren't. Pretty sure the crashed UFO is part of the precombines, but many APCs, vertibirds, and the like probably aren't. The downside is that stuff you bring to the airport will vanish and reappear at the original locations when the cells reset. I'm not 100% certain of this, but I think that's how it works. As an aside, it should be relatively easy (by comparison) to adjust BoS vendors to pay more for energy weapons, PA pieces, high-tech junk items, and the like.

@ImmortalAbsol Don't give up hope. We just need to find someone with the appropriate level of ambition (or gullibility) to undertake such a project.

As cool as the marked object idea is, the amount of work required to navmesh and regenerate previsbines at all of those locations post BoS acquisition would be mind-boggling. Creating patches for a bajillion other mods that make use of the same cells would be even worse.

Wim95's spawn button for that mod is still available here: wim95 Fallout 4 mods - Google Drive

The easiest way to get that PreVis pack to the bottom of your load order is to find the plugin in Vortex, double click it, and when menu slides in on the right, scroll down to the bottom and check the "Locked To Index" toggle. That'll put it at the very bottom (along with any others that also have that box checked). What mod doubles up the DC guard patrols outside? I like the sound of it. I've been seriously considering making a mod that places DC guards on the far side of the stadium where they haven't been placed. It doesn't make much sense that such a large portion of the outer wall has no one watching over it.

That's too bad. DCE is very cool, and the Exopatch is what fixed it for me. This is a longshot, but did you make sure the PreVis pack is at the bottom of your load order? The main Exopatch should be right after DCE itself, with other DC mods after that, but the PreVis pack has to be after all of them.

Use this mod to fix DCE's precombine issues: Diamond City Expansion - eXoPatch at Fallout 4 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)

I did that with my original Real Name Settlers Expanded mod, but since Alias uses a cache to keep names from repeating until it goes through all of them, I didn't think it necessary to eliminate "duplicates" when I ported the list over. Glad you found a lot of useful names from it, though. As an aside, this is what I used to collect most of the names for those mods: Random Name Generator - Behind the Name